Rate face each other in the debate hosted by Spectrum News new york one. Focused on the converse, economic it focused on the coronavirus, economica recovery. The primary is june 23. Good evening, im the political anchor. After months of a Devastating Health crisis, our city is starting to reopen. But that comes in the white of several weeks wake of several weeks of unrest. Were also keeping our eyes on the primary. Thats for many seats, including congress, senate, and queensboro pregnant president. They will be grappling with issues were dealing with in new york and around the country. Were pleased to offer a democratic emirate debate for the 16th Congressional District, covering part of the bronx and lower westchester. He is a map of the district. Include coopt city, woodlawn, riverdale, new rochelle and rye. It is currently held by eliot engel. He is representative since 1989. Here are the rules of this debate. It is a one minute response and a 32nd rebuttal. You can see the full debate at any time and i want to note we are taking this on tuesday, june 9. Lets go now to opening statements. The order will be determined by random drawing. Chris will go first. Good evening. Thank you. Voters have a choice between four great individuals, three from art here. You can choose a career politician, whose focus solely on International Issues and has had 32 years and hasnt gotten it done. On the other hand, your pick an individual with no experience as at the classroom, backed solely by money outside the district. What i ask you to do is listen to issues important to us and look at who has the experience to address them and who is the plan to move us forward on each and every one of these issues . That person is me. Thank you. Thank you. Next well hear from mr. Bowman. Thank you. I have had the pleasure of serving this community as an educator. A already my career as principal before becoming a guidance counselor and for the last 10 per five years, i have served my community as a principal in the bronx. I have had the opportunity to organize parents, teachers, students, and by the proposal of my own school. In 2009, we opened our own school in. The northeast bronx our mission was to tap into the potential of our children, leverage the power of our family to fight against institutional racism and classism that exists within the system throughout the state and the country. Were proud of the work weve done, but theres more work to be done because our children who lived in poverty deal with extreme trauma and are suffering under democrat policy. Its time for change in the district and for the country. Ok, thank you. Next is mr. Engel. Im disappointed. The only latino was disbarred i really wish he would be here. Im eliot engel. Im running for another term as a member of congress. I want to say the country has changed in the past few weeks and i want to address that. I want to address the fact that black lives matter. I want to address the fact that there has been a tremendous outpouring of young people and old people and middleaged people and our country will never be the same. The black imagine people feel, the indignity of physical day, and i hope all of us, no matter who was elected, will develop our time making sure racial equality in america becomes a reality. What happened to george floyd breaks my heart. It should not happen to anyone, certainly not to a human being. I hope they threw the book at those three cops and i hope it opens up a chance in america for us to really reassess and redo our law enforcement, because it cant continue to be the way it is now. I know in congress, we met yesterday. Were working on packages to make sure chokehold and other things are banned. There are so many things we can do because a black lives do matter. Thank you. Thank you. Candidates, we are going to talk about the protests. We are in a time of great people, of course, and there are lots of questions about criminal justice swirling around, including some legislation that the next representative will have to get involved with and vote on. I wanted to ask each of you, what public actions have you taken on these issues the last few weeks since protests began . And if elected, what would be the top priority when it comes to Camilla Justice reform . Lets go in the same order. These are big problems the country is facing. Taken, and youre can find them on a website, are as follows. A, if i was in power in minneapolis, i wouldve a, charged the racist with murder one from day one. I would have started that trial jury, takingin a care of. I would have arrested the other three immediately. We needed leadership on these issues. I proposed on my website that it would make it a hate crime for any prosecuting officer who targets people of color. I would put in a reasonable and necessary standard, a standard under the law for many years that people understand, and those other standards before you can use force. Are the standards before you can use force. I would required deescalation tactics before you use force, and three strikes legislation. 18s individual had complaint against him. That should never have been allowed. He said been thrown off the force should have been thrown off the force. One thing the congress and mentioned, things have changed the last few weeks. If youre american, things have not changed at all. We deal with institutional is, and i a daily bas have deal with it my interlayer. The First Time Ever my entire life. The first time i was beaten by police was 11 years old. Its something we consistently deal with. As we engage with police brutality, we have to engage with all institutional racism, and where it exists. The federal policy we need to address involves immunity. Right now, police have immunity. If they violate someones civil rights, the person is not allowed to sue them. That is an acceptable. We need to increase police accountability, not just in terms of accountability, but federal investigation. If police commit a crime, we need the department of justice to investigate at a federal level in addition, we need to reallocate resources that have gone to militarizing the police. Thats the crime bill that led to militarization of the police force. We need it for nurses, police force nurses, teachers, housing, so they can be deeper policed. S opposed de please give us your response. What have you been doing and what would you do if reelected . What i would be doing is what my kids have been doing every day this week. I would go out to demonstrations and go to my district to demonstrate. Not going tore change into weeks or three weeks, the country is changing in terms of how horrific this is an being over. Being aware. There are things you take for granted. I think this is a tremendous thing in making people aware and abusing people as brothers and people as embracing brothers and sisters. Thats why congress tried to respond yesterday with some of the repose of the proposals. Im working to make sure some things are eliminated in new york state, there is a built in the legislature which would allow people to take a look at the previous record. Right now, you cant look at it. I think things are changing. Enough,ore to do, not but it makes us aware. When i march and my kids, one in brooklyn, one in the bronx, tw o in the bronx, when they march, they were topped by the values taught by myself and their mother. I want to be with the people because there cant be a bear lesson taught and social action for positive change in this country. Ok. Let me ask each of you, there are calls for each of you to defund the police. I want to know if you disappointed that if you supported that. Different people mean different parts of the. Let me start with you of that. Let me start with the. With you. I dont support defunding the police. What i do support is taking some of the money and using it for other methods of policing. There is not just one method of policing. I think we each have the structure of the Police Department. That doesnt mean we have to go with the model we had been using. I think that people can put their heads together, come up with a good plan, and i think we will be able to, by and large, move forward in a positive way. But it could take a while. We cant solve these problems overnight. But were all in this i always like to quote, saying my good friend, a civil rights activist endorsing the for reelection, he says endorsing me for election, he says we all come here, but we are in the same boat together. We have to fix our society. It is wounded and it is broken and we have to change it and we have to work as hard as we can, and hopefully we will come up with a system where people will feel a modicum of fairness than what they feel right now. Ok. Mr. Fink . My fear is that we need to demilitarized the police. We need to reallocate the amount that replaced to the Police Department all over the country and use them in the correct ways. We need to get rid of the ar15s, i couldnt believe that we have two of Armored Vehicles in new york to take care of these issues, and that is a complete waste of money. We should get rid of those. We should get rid of military type weapons that are carried by Police Forces and reallocate that money to proper training, better testing, and social policing. I do agree with the carson that we have a lot the congressman that we have a long way to go. I am a father. I have a children, four is white, one is black. I dont want to live in a country where my one child is treated differently than other children by our police, so we need to make change and we need to make. Change now not just need to make changes now. Not just black people, but white people. How long are people of color in this country going to need to get there . How long are people in poverty going to need to get there . Yes, i support defunding of the police because if we invest in jobs, there wont be any for as large a police force as we have and there wont be any for militarization of the police. And congressman engel, when you said you came here on different ships, you are absolutely correct. Africanamericans tend here on slave ships. We are the only people on this land that actually existed on this land as property, as capital. We were on the same boat. We are not on the same boat. People of african descent are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to be killed by inice, incarcerated, live areas where housing has been neglected. We have to have conversations to deal with institutional racism and classism. And we cant say it is going to take a long while. The whole country is wising up. We are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Did you want to respond . I did. I wasnt quoting myself. I was quoting john lewis, a civil rights hero in the 60s in alabama on the bridge, where he was beaten senseless, almost. He is the one who sit almost did. Almost dead. He is the one who said that. He is an icon. I dont think his word can be doubted because he is one of the people who changed this country. Fair enough. Standby. We are going to take a short break. Well be back with more of this debate in just a minute. Welcome back to our democratic primary debate for the 16th Congressional District which covers part of the bronx and lower westchester. We join eliot engel, chris fink and jamaal bowman. Want to talk to you about the ongoing pandemic. The city is beginning to reopen but it is worth remembering the first major covid outbreak in this region took place in my hometown of new rochelle which falls within the 16th Congressional District. I wanted to know from each of you as the pandemic swept through the area, what public actions did you take to help the community . Get into a discussion of what we need to do Going Forward. Lets start with you, mr. Bowman. The pandemic hit new rochelle march 2. Within eight days, new rochelle was contained. Schools were closed, National Guard was brought in, and food was distributed to those who needed it. Shortly thereafter, i was rallying with the nurses outside of st. Joseph hospital demanding ppes because the federal governments response was lackluster in terms of ppes not just here in the state, but across the country. I also had the privilege of serving at food pantries in yonkers and multiple areas of the bronx. The one thing i want to highlight the new rochelle response was accurate. Unfortunately, the same response that not happen in yonkers and mount vernon. It took another 23 days to bring a testing site to coopt city and another 53 days to bring testing sites to yonkers, mount vernon. The response was inadequate, and as we know, black and latino communities were disproportionately impacted by covid and out the responses lackluster terms of the community in new rochelle and those in poverty and other areas of the district. Mr. Fink . Less than a mile from new rochelle, less than a mile of the epicenter of this pandemic. My family and i brought food to homeless shelters, food kitchens. We gave blood. So did my staff, because we knew blood was short at this period of time. We got out there and attended rallies in support of our community. What i also did was i came up with a plan. It is on my website. Clearly, our nation and our federal government were not ready when we came into this pandemic. There were not prepared for it, they did not react quickly. I want to have a plan when we come out of it. That plan addresses social, environmental and economic. It gets usial story, safely back to work and trains healthcare workers. On the environmental side, and make sure the last two months continue Going Forward and we get Renewable Energy. Most importantly on the economic side, we get people back to work. We need to create jobs, all of our district, long term jobs that will support our people. Mr. Engel . People. Meeting with people really didnt know what had hit them. In new rochelle, when this first started, i spoke with the people who were quarantined at the time to tell them we were behind them, that we would help them anyway possible. I went down to washington and got to work. 100,000ed 100,000 antibody tests. 5 million in funding to new york hospitals. Money for Community Health centers in new rochelle and in mount vernon and places like that. I have been able to get more money into my district than any other member of congress. I was very proud of the money that i was able to bring in. W, thats what i did and erked with all th hospitals of new york to help them procure money that they needed for beds and other things like that. Ok, lets spend a couple of minutes. What is the status as far as you are concerned of medical readiness, resiliency in the district, and if it needs improving, what would you do as a member of congress to make that happen . In any order. From the very beginning, we called on the federal government to do a lot more. The cares act was inadequate. This district is one of the most economically unequal in the country. One time 1200 checks were not going to get it done. We called for 2000 per month check to everyone who lost their job. We called for the cancellation of rent, the cancellation of utilities, and the cancellation of mom and pop mortgages. We called for undocumented immigrants to be a part of the cares package as well. I spoke to an undocumented immigrant recently who has four children who are american citizens and she has not received a dime from the federal government. Which is unacceptable. , unless we readiness are going to do doortodoor testing, especially in places like coopt city where they are so many seniors, so many have been homebound, i dont think we are ready to open up, opened back up just yet. I also want to comment on congressman ingle. Engle. He reported via his social media that he would be giving out supplies and mount vernon. He put out multiple tweets he would be there doing so. In fact, he was in maryland. A reporter knocked on his home and congressman engel answered the door. He lied to the constituents of this district saying he was going to be here, when he was not. Lets give him a chance to respond. Mr. Bowman, that is so ridiculous on its face. I work in washington. Marilyn is right across the river from washington. When i first got elected to congress, my children were young and i brought them down with me. Now they are in their 20s and 30s and they are back in new york. I still have that house where i go and i go down to washington. I dont think anybody would begrudge me for going down to washington. I fought in the heroes act. I got 5 billion in funding for new york hospitals. That is five times more than any other state got. That is work that i did. Its so ridiculous. I live in riverdale. Everybody knows i live in riverdale. I have lived there for a long time. I am sort of like the mayor of riverdale. It just goes to show how much you dont know the district because everybody in riverdale knows me. Very few know you because you really have not been in the district. You just decided you were going to move in and run for office. Heres the issue. He said he was going to be in the district and he was not in the district. That is misleading, that is a lie. That is taking your constituents for granted. Number one. Let me finish, ok . Number two, have when you feel the pain and the suffering that people are going through during the pandemic if you are not here . All of the other Senior Leaders from congress returned back to their districts here in new york. Congressman engel stayed in maryland. If you wanted to stay in fine, but dots not mislead the voters when you say you are going to be here when you were not here. The only person misleading the voters right now is you. Senator charles bailey, who by the way, is supporting me. Assemblyman who was supporting me. The three of us were giving food to the people. I couldnt make it, so the two of them gave it and i was not there. I was a sponsor. I was listed on there. You tweeted you were going to be there. No, no. I sponsored it. Its on the record. Ok, i think we get the gist of this dispute. Im sure people are Fact Checking as we speak and twitter will get the last word on that. Mr. Fink . I will let these to fight all night long but let me answer the question that neither of them answered. Two things. Contact tracing is the most important thing we could and should be doing right now with respect to this pandemic. Its shown to be effective all over the country. We need to do it here. The pandemic happened here for a reason. Because of the concentration of human beings in our population. We need to follow that. Second, the cares act. The cares act was a bandaid, an insufficient bandaid. That is why my plan will create jobs, not only in infrastructure, but jobs in the